PvP: The Community Response So Far

One of the most anticipated features for Pokemon GO, PvP, has been out for a few weeks now. Already, the community has spoken on how they feel about PvP through a massive Trainer Tips poll. Let’s discuss what this means for PvP in its current state, talk about the Sinnoh Stone drop rate issue, and discuss some ways trainers could become more involved in PvP battles!

Not a 50/50 Split?

Nick (Trainer Tips) made a poll which is by far the biggest poll response toward PvP that we have seen to date. Below is the community response. If you see this Nick, we appreciate the polls you made!

Out of almost 24,000 people, more than half really don’t care much about PvP? Before we get into why that may be, he also had a follow up poll on the matter.

Strangely enough, around half of the people who don’t care about PvP are actually winning their battles! So what gives? What is going on here? The first obvious reason is that not ALL Pokémon GO players are competitive. For over 2 years now we’ve been playing Pokémon GO by trying to complete our PokéDex. This includes the new and highly sought after shiny Pokémon as well! That within itself is a lot of time and investment put into the game. When it came time for PvP to come out, it makes sense that a change in the way we can play the game may not alter a trainers playing habits. I mean, 2 years is a long time after all. Therefore, these trainers simply don’t care about PvP.

We must also remember, a good percentage of trainers have jobs, families, and other important responsibilities that restrict their playing time and overall knowledge of the game. Which brings me to my next point. Whether by choice or by force, some trainers may not have the knowledge of type coverage, move advantages, and so on memorized to really compete in PvP battles. Which honestly, is completely fine! It really is a lot of hard work to do research on the best Pokémon for PvP and knowing all the ins and outs. PvP just for fun doesn’t seem to cut it for them. Perhaps better rewards?More on that later!

Sinnoh Stones Mishap?

Perhaps the biggest reason why people don’t care to much about PvP is because of the the rewards. Although getting a Sinnoh Stone is a great reward, the drop rates could use some tweaking. I was given a reddit post and below is what the drop rates were from winning/losing out of 900 PvP battles. Link to reddit thread here.

Sinnoh Stones

Battles

Drop Rate %

PvP Winners

70

480

14.6%

PvP Losers

77

420

18.3%

Total

147

900

16.5%

It may not seem like much, but we can still learn a lot from data of 900 PvP battles. The MAJOR problem that everyone can agree on is that losing grants you a better chance at a Sinnoh Stone than winning. Regarding my experience and reading countless comments throughout social media outlets, I can indeed confirm that this is the case. This is absurd. The drop rates need to be changed drastically which means altering the RNG to favor winners more over losers. Don’t get me wrong, losing can still grant a Sinnoh Stone, but at a much lower rate. Also, it would only be fair to grant the winner a Sinnoh Stone if the loser was going to get one as well. Seems silly that the loser of a battles can get better rewards than the winner. After all, enticing some friendly competition is always a good thing!

Side note:We are curious to know if you have received more Sinnoh Stones from winning or losing. Gathering more data on the matter would be much appreciated. Thanks trainers!

Getting Everyone More Involved

Okay okay, so how can we get those who don’t care about PvP to actually get more involved? Have more items as rewards for PvP! I compiles a list of the items people wanted to see as rewards from comments on Twitter and this is what they wanted to see:

All of these items would benefit any trainer to enhance there Pokemon further and give more incentive for players to battle everyday. Also, I believe there shouldn’t be a cap on the amount of times you can receive stardust for battling friendly trainers. Yeah you could say people will just spam battles with their second account, but to get a good amount of stardust, good luck. In order to get 50,000 stardust, you’d have to do 100 battles straight. So by no means can you spam battles at a quick rate. Therefore, I see no issues in rewarding stardust for every battle. Stardust is way more valuable than it ever was anyways.

Final Thoughts

We shouldn’t expect everyone to be on board with PvP in the first place. That doesn’t mean there can’t be more ways to improve the rewards system to encourage more interactions between trainers. As for the competitive players (including me), the foundation for PvP has been set and tournaments are starting to form. Things are only going to get better from here for ALL trainers. It all depends on how Niantic wants to implement further changes down the road. Maybe abilities? Status effects? Who knows! I’m curious what you guys think! Whether you care about PvP or not, what are some things YOU think should be done to enhance/encourage more PvP participation for everyone?

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